|
Glagha posted:I learned the hard way not to use the Enterprise ship in Galaxy Trucker. My friend who was new to the game got hit with saboteur in exactly the right spot early on to cut the ship in half, making her lose all of her engines, followed immediately by an open space card like, right at the beginning of the round. Galaxy Trucker is just a game where stuff like that happens sometimes and she was a good sport about it but I still felt bad at just this instant 360 no scope headshot into get fuckedville. I thought that ship was specifically from the "for advanced/crazy only" series (III?) of ship designs. It's ridiculously easy for that ship to get turbofucked. Giving it to or letting a newbie take it is just mean 
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 20:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 00:50 |
|
|
silvergoose posted:Go springs to mind. And yet I love Go, because you at least can get to the end of the game, possibly find out what the mistake was that lost you the game, remember that it happened in turn 10 or whatever, and then realize it wasn't a mistake at the time you laid the stone. Agricola, on the other hand... all of my games of Agricola have been with experienced players, and it's more than a little infuriating to make three or four moves early on and have the other player explain, calmly and clearly, how those choices made it nearly impossible for me to win the game. The game has no signposting for this in any way (at least as far as I can tell, but me dumb), and if the other player hadn't said anything, I wouldn't know until I was hosed. I don't like games that feel like there's objectively better paths somewhat regardless of board state, or where there are guaranteed bad roads that a new player would have no way to identify. CommonShore posted:A wrong first hire in FCM makes the game basically unplayable. I've never been able to track down a copy of FCM to try it, how obvious is it when you've made the game unplayable for yourself? I'm sort of okay with games that have board states where a bad choice will sink you, so long as it doesn't take you two hours to figure it out.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:12
|
|
|
Agricola is one of those games where if you're learning it for the first time and you play it with experienced players playing to win, you're going to have an awful time. Puerto Rico is another game that was ruined for me when I was exposed to it like that.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:24
|
|
|
Yeah except you can also look at move 10 and realize that you have no idea why it might or might not be a mistake because you're only 15k not 10k. The skill differential in that game.  Anyway I hear you on Agricola except I really like learning opening strategy of games so I tend not to fall into opening strategy traps if it's a game I've, well, looked up at all. Tzolkin is another game where you can kinda gently caress yourself over early on and, weirdly enough, I can recite some opening strategies for. Maybe it's a worker placement thing? Go is totally worker placement!
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:25
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:I've never been able to track down a copy of FCM to try it, how obvious is it when you've made the game unplayable for yourself? I'm sort of okay with games that have board states where a bad choice will sink you, so long as it doesn't take you two hours to figure it out. Generally what happens to new players is someone is the first to make a food type, they get the upgraded chef for free, and then realize they have no money to pay that person. None of the basic cards can keep up with the upgraded cards so you'll be shut out of competing which means no income which means no upgraded cards. The efficiency gap grows exponentially so if you screw up the early turns then by the time you catch up with someone's position from 5 turns ago they're now effectively 15 turns ahead of you. When we were inexperienced we could call the game after the first bank break, usually 60 minutes in. Now we can play a game in about 90 minutes max and are experienced enough to stay until the end but new players will probably gently caress themselves almost instantly.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:28
|
|
|
Honestly I don't think it's a bad idea to look up the openers for FCM because there's only like, two viable ones and just play it by ear for the rest of it. Impress upon players how important milestones are because they straight up will make and break you if you miss the clock on one.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:28
|
|
|
SettingSun posted:Agricola is one of those games where if you're learning it for the first time and you play it with experienced players playing to win, you're going to have an awful time. Puerto Rico is another game that was ruined for me when I was exposed to it like that. Oh definitely, and I had PR ruined for me in that way, but when I played Agricola it wasn't with someone who was out for blood. He was actually really polite and did his best to try and prevent me from making mistakes that would make for a bad experience with the game. And I get it, with any game you're new to, especially ones with a lot of moving parts, it can be tough to identify when you've made a boneheaded mistake. So if he'd stopped me once or twice to suggest a different move, that'd be fine. But I feel like it was every other turn, and it was always "oh you'll really want to build this here so that four turns from now you can get this otherwise you'll be stuck with no x at the end of the game and lose points for it". Which leads me to believe that either the game is not actually that good/fun, I'm just flat out terrible at it and was missing really obvious strategies, or both.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:30
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:I've never been able to track down a copy of FCM to try it, how obvious is it when you've made the game unplayable for yourself? I'm sort of okay with games that have board states where a bad choice will sink you, so long as it doesn't take you two hours to figure it out. The biggest trap in FCM is that you can easily hire people before you're able to pay their salary, so you have to lay them off. If other players avoid this mistake, they'll run away faster than you can ever catch. The "eternal marketing" milestone can also be more of a curse than a blessing. I'd recommend ignoring the introductory rules in the manual because they take too much out of the game. A better variant I've seen online: 1. Every player begins with $20 (or the First To Train milestone). 2. Play with all the milestones, but don't make them exclusive. In the real game, once a milestone is reached, no one else can get it (although multiple people can get it in the same round). That should prevent destroying your game on the first few turns. You should definitely play with the full rules by your second game, though.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:34
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:If I need to think three hours ahead to make a game enjoyable, that reads to me as more an exercise of figuring out who can plan the best, or who has played the game the most and thereby knows what the less obvious gotchas are. I get that the solution here is "well just don't play Agricola or games like it" but I guess I kind of resent the fact that a couple of game designers I'm friends with hold it up as the golden boy of euro game design. The reason you hate agricola is a valid reason, but it's also kind of why i like it. The scarcity and pressure makes it more interactive than other worker placements, because blocking actions etc. is much more important with stakes this high. You have to watch the other players much more closely than in other euros.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:38
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:Yeah except you can also look at move 10 and realize that you have no idea why it might or might not be a mistake because you're only 15k not 10k. True enough on the Go thing, I guess I just see that game as a skill you can develop, as opposed to something like Agricola where I feel like I can get to a point where I'll always at least do well, if not win, but only because I've done a sort of rote memorization of what strategies I need to use at given points in the game, rather than any sort of internalized understanding of the game. I'm probably splitting hairs at this point though, so oh well. I don't think it's explicitly a worker placement thing, for me at least. I love Ex Libris, Lords of Waterdeep (I know, I know, dunk on me as needed), and Charterstone, but maybe I have an aversion to extremely Euro-style WP games. As to the opening strategy traps... I dunno. I never like it when I look at a game and feel like the only way I'm going to do well or enjoy it or whatever is to look up strategies beforehand. Maybe that's just a weird aversion for me, but I know with a lot of more complex games, if I look up strategies I almost never get any better at the game. I think I'm just bad enough at board games that the only way I can wrap my head around more than beginner level strategy in complex games is to fail horrendously or something.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:39
|
|
|
discount cathouse posted:The reason you hate agricola is a valid reason, but it's also kind of why i like it. The scarcity and pressure makes it more interactive than other worker placements, because blocking actions etc. is much more important with stakes this high. You have to watch the other players much more closely than in other euros. I can see that, and I think if I had played it primarily with people who were also new to the game, I'd have a very different opinion of it. As is, I never had the chance to make dumb mistakes and learn from them, because most mistakes didn't just put me in a position to lose (which is fine, I lose games all the time and it doesn't bother me) but also sucked a ton of the enjoyment out of the game.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:42
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:True enough on the Go thing, I guess I just see that game as a skill you can develop, as opposed to something like Agricola where I feel like I can get to a point where I'll always at least do well, if not win, but only because I've done a sort of rote memorization of what strategies I need to use at given points in the game, rather than any sort of internalized understanding of the game. I'm probably splitting hairs at this point though, so oh well. You're splitting hairs. Opening strategy is always a mix of memorization and "huh that's weird I can make this move and I know it's right and I don't quite know why" until you are actually good at whatever game it is. 
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:44
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:You're splitting hairs. Opening strategy is always a mix of memorization and "huh that's weird I can make this move and I know it's right and I don't quite know why" until you are actually good at whatever game it is. Fair enough, I think I just never liked Agricola enough in the first place to get to a point of intuitiveness, and the game doesn't make enough sense to me for me to have a memorized set of opening moves. I had way too many games where I'd get to the end, lose horribly, and have no specific clue as to why. With Go, even if I can't precisely articulate why I lost, I can generally get an inkling sense of roughly when the game got away from me. But I've also played Go at least twenty times as much as Agricola, so there is that.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:49
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:True enough on the Go thing, I guess I just see that game as a skill you can develop, as opposed to something like Agricola where I feel like I can get to a point where I'll always at least do well, if not win, but only because I've done a sort of rote memorization of what strategies I need to use at given points in the game, rather than any sort of internalized understanding of the game. I'm probably splitting hairs at this point though, so oh well. Any non-zero sum game will always result in "I'll always at least do well." The question is can you do better than everyone else exclusively because then you win. And when it comes down to it, your game plan is only half the battle. You also need to read your opponent's needs and either play around them or beat them to the punch. This stands in contrast to something like Carcassonne and mid-aughts Euros, something I've been falling off hard. The excitement of Carcassonne comes completely as an accident of the game's design. If I cut you off it's usually not because I want to, it's because it's the best move available to me right then and there. Not so in Agricola where me denying you what you want in turn gives me something. My biggest gaming pet peeve are games where competitive play gives you nothing. No! I take your loving sheep and deny everyone else! There's also something to be said about playing a game multiple times. Some games, like FCM, can't be understood in one play. And I get our time is valuable and there are too many games in our backlogs but it irks me when people criticize a game for pitfalls that disappear completely on a second play.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 21:57
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:I've never been able to track down a copy of FCM to try it, how obvious is it when you've made the game unplayable for yourself? I'm sort of okay with games that have board states where a bad choice will sink you, so long as it doesn't take you two hours to figure it out. It's totally obvious once it has happened, even moreso from something like Agricola. When a player has screwed up in Agricola, they'll be sitting there going "man my farm sucks" sometimes with "haha" When a player has screwed up in Food Chain Magnate, they'll be sitting there going "wow I have zero dollars and I have no way of making any to get back in the game."
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 22:18
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:It's totally obvious once it has happened, even moreso from something like Agricola. Ah yeah, I could see how that would be pretty tough to miss.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 22:23
|
|
|
Updated Goon rankings to top 200 https://boardgamegeek.com/collectio...btype=boardgame Vladaa dominance is clear with a full third of the top 21 games. Sorry Jedit. 146 games on our top 200 are more than 5 years old. Cult of the new get hosed. Top Uwe games according to goons by rating:
Top Vladaa games
Top games for 6+ players (I'm sure Captain Sonar and Sidereal Confluence would make this list with more ratings)
Top 200    
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 22:35
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:Agricola, on the other hand... all of my games of Agricola have been with experienced players, and it's more than a little infuriating to make three or four moves early on and have the other player explain, calmly and clearly, how those choices made it nearly impossible for me to win the game. The game has no signposting for this in any way (at least as far as I can tell, but me dumb), and if the other player hadn't said anything, I wouldn't know until I was hosed. This seems way off to me - the only "opening strategy" you need in Agricola is "aim towards family growth as hard as you can while still feeding your family" (and they should have told you that before game one). There's lots of stuff you could do that would be inefficient in your first few turns (ie. spending your wood on something that isn't working towards family growth - like a fence), but "making it impossible to win the game" is largely the other player being melodramatic. Yes if you keep being inefficient you'll lose, but that'll be because you played bad all game, not because you were eternally doomed by early mistakes. To be clear, there are quite often big inflection points in a game of Agricola. Often you're way behind on turn zero based on how the draft went (especially if you've left in the gamebreaker occupations/improvements). Sometimes you have to push in a lot of chips on Family Growth flipping next turn, and you effectively win or lose right there. Sometimes someone goes out of their way to throw away some sheep you were relying on, and you eat -12 begging points. But there's not some secret set of moves you have to do at the beginning of the game or you lose (and, to be clear, there are moves like this in some games). Edit: It sounds to me like you're losing to people who were better at Agricola - but you're feeling extra bad/hopeless about it because they're saying you're doomed on turn 3 (which is not actually likely). jmzero fucked around with this message at 22:48 on May 30, 2018 |
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 22:45
|
|
|
jmzero posted:
You know, I think you've hit the nail on the head with this last bit. Clearly it's bugging me why I don't like and/or don't enjoy Agricola or I wouldn't still be talking about it. It's obviously a super popular game so there's got to be something there to recommend it, and also because figuring out why I don't enjoy a game is a pretty helpful bit of game design insight... but I've had a ton of trouble puttying my finger on why Agricola never worked for me. And I think it's exactly what you're saying there, I didn't enjoy it because I was kind of being sold (in a well-meaning way) a bit of hyperbole in how unforgiving the game was. I think there was a lot of dissonance at play between them telling me I'd screwed myself over, and me looking at the information I had at hand and wondering "...wait, how am I screwed exactly?" I think in their minds, they could extrapolate out how they could outpace me from that moment, which translated for them into me definitely losing, which isn't the same thing at all as locking myself out of a win. Also the fact that I've played a half-dozen games of it so far and had no idea that there were gamebreaking occupation/improvements to the degree that you should leave them out says a lot. And no, they never really told me to beeline for family growth as much as you can support. Though I think that's self-evident by the end of the first game anyway, since it's kind of an implicit thing in most worker placement games that more workers=good overall, Agricola just has the added complication of having to feed them. In any case, I kind of want to go back and play it with a different group and see how it strikes me-- it's also been a year and a half, at least, since I last played it. Even though the game really isn't my cup of tea in a number of ways, I still want to give it a few more tries before writing it off entirely.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 23:05
|
|
|
I think that Agricola hits a lot of notes that, to me, are just not very interesting in terms of worker placement games. The start of the game feels regimented and then weirdly random due to how the family growth space drops in the second phase of the game. The end results of your choices tend to look the same and the game does penalise you for not being a jack-of-all trades. There are outright best ways to build your farms due to scarcity of resources. The game balance is reliant on drafting. The use of these cards is unavoidable because the game without it is rather pedestrian. You can’t really decide on a strategy prior to the game because strategy is card dependant. There are unavoidable turn order effects. I appreciate Agricola for its impact but honestly I’m done with the game, or with most other Uwe offerings: the only game I have from him is Patchwork.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 23:16
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:In any case, I kind of want to go back and play it with a different group and see how it strikes me-- it's also been a year and a half, at least, since I last played it. Even though the game really isn't my cup of tea in a number of ways, I still want to give it a few more tries before writing it off entirely. Or pound out 10 games on your mobile device against the computer. You'll nail down what a general "good farm" plays out like pretty quick, and the game's flaws (which I agree exist, though I like the game more than Tekopo does) are much less noticeable when the game is done in 20 minutes.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 23:26
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:
Dominant Species is 6 player and rated almost a full point higher than the top game on that list 
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 23:34
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:Dominant Species is 6 player and rated almost a full point higher than the top game on that list It’s not 6+ players, though
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2018 23:49
|
|
|
I have poor impulse control.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 00:02
|
|
|
Clank is amazing, what else is like that?
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 00:05
|
|
|
Turtlicious posted:Clank is amazing, what else is like that? As in a deckbuilder? People here generally agree Dominion, Puzzle Strike, Valley of the Kings, Eminent Domain, and Mage Knight (in order of most pure deckbuilder to least) are the best of the bunch, though I might be forgetting some.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 00:19
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:I think that Agricola hits a lot of notes that, to me, are just not very interesting in terms of worker placement games. The start of the game feels regimented and then weirdly random due to how the family growth space drops in the second phase of the game. The end results of your choices tend to look the same and the game does penalise you for not being a jack-of-all trades. There are outright best ways to build your farms due to scarcity of resources. The game balance is reliant on drafting. The use of these cards is unavoidable because the game without it is rather pedestrian. You can’t really decide on a strategy prior to the game because strategy is card dependant. There are unavoidable turn order effects. This pretty much sums up why Agricola always left me cold. How do you feel about AFFO? Its decision space is so much more open.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 00:22
|
|
|
18Lilliput looks great but at ~44CAD for a card game that doesn't even include shipping (est. another 30 CAD for shipping to Canada for 1 copy) is a tough impulse/curiosity buy. I mean I want to give it a shot, but at ~$75 bucks I don't know if I want to be the first one out of the foxhole.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 00:46
|
|
|
Turtlicious posted:Clank is amazing, what else is like that? If you enjoy Clank you'll pretty much enjoy anything.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 00:46
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:Vladaa dominance is clear with a full third of the top 21 games. Sorry Jedit. Not my fault if you can't prise your lips off his dick. Also two of them are Codenames, so it doesn't really count (and if you've read my BGG banner you've no doubt also moused over it). (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 01:07
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Not my fault if you can't prise your lips off his dick. Also two of them are Codenames, so it doesn't really count (and if you've read my BGG banner you've no doubt also moused over it). That seems unnecessarily rude? And duet and regular are different games, though really duet isn't even designed by vlaada, it was a fan 2p variant that caught CGE's interest.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 01:08
|
|
|
Boxman posted:Pandemic Iberia isn’t very good, right? it’s only $16 at MM, and we don’t have any version of Pandemic in the House, but would I be better off just picking up vanilla? It's cheap because it's a "limited" run and they printed way too many copies. If you only want to get one Pandemic game then I think the choices are Iberia or Legacy. Iberia's got some very interesting variations on the standard rules, focusing on prevention over cure and modelling how an infected population might move to seek treatment. It's also really pretty.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 01:55
|
|
|
I think Pandemic: Rising Tide also got a lot of praise, though it's even further removed from the original formula.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 01:58
|
|
|
snickles posted:I’m looking for a grand adventure game to play with my 7-year old son. We’ve been playing Gloomhaven, and he enjoys it, but he has a little trouble with the depth and breadth of the combat. I’d like something a little less tactical, more along the lines of runebound but simpler. I’ve considered Talisman, but surely there must be a better option? I've heard good things about Stuffed Fables.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 02:21
|
|
|
Stuffed Fables or Mice and Mystics?
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 02:25
|
|
|
S.J. posted:Stuffed Fables or Mice and Mystics? Doctor Spaceman posted:I've heard good things about Stuffed Fables. Availability seems low right now, but both of these are on my short list. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 02:49
|
|
|
quote:Cthulhu: Death May Die is the all new game from CMON, coming to Kickstarter soon. It brings together the creative forces of Eric M. Lang and Rob Daviau. Every element of this recipe stinks.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 05:09
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:Every element of this recipe stinks. I'm sure I'll end up playing it, I'll give a trip report when I do. Honestly I'm a little amazed I've not gotten roped into playing Blood Rage or Rising Sun yet.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 05:13
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:Every element of this recipe stinks. Bingo on the first draw
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 05:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 00:50 |
|
|
Is Colonial Twilight the new go-to first COIN game if I'd mainly be playing 2 player? Sendt like reviews are positive.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2018 05:20
|
|
